Last two Champs here in the east, there was a morning briefing, national anthems and "pep rally," and general announcements at 7 a.m. You don't want to miss it, so you need to be on site, with your dog walked and settled, before than. No dogs in the stands. So it makes for early mornings. After the briefing we walk, by groups. When everyone has walked we run. Then there's a break (45-60 min?? Actually don't really recall) while the arena is drug and the new course is set. Then we walk and run again. There is no Set time for the start of the second walk through you, just have to be aware. They did try to announce it over the speaker system (assuming, hopefully, they will have one at this new site) but understanding that was sometimes dicey, and Really hard to do if you are asleep!! Last time I fell asleep at our stall (did I mention early mornings?) and missed the second walk through completely. Luckily we ran later in the day (could have been later in the night, the days can go LONG) so I just sat in the stands and watched and thankfully had no trouble with the course. Run order is the same for each day (if you run 40th in the am you'll run 40th in the pm unless dogs ahead of you have pulled, the next day you might be 200th for both of those runs). I've run quite early and quite late (well after my normal bedtime). And I've stayed later than that to root for friends, old and new, because the stands get pretty empty late at night and they needed someone cheering for them, too!!

All that being said, Champs has a history of throwing new things at us. I think it's part of the test!! I can't imagine how this general outline could change....but what do I know. Just go expecting to have a blast!!Vicki

Okay not the official answer here... i seem to recall dogs still running at 9-10 pm the last two times we were in Springfield. However my West Coast friends have said they have been known to run after midnight out there. Assuming they aren't just blowing smoke up my skirt :-) I'm not sure why the difference unless the entry out there is that much larger that it just takes that much longer (figure 50 more dogs is 100 more runs--would add close to a couple hours). And I haven't sat down and counted to see if we have more dogs this year, though I have heard a couple people say that is the case?

We run in group order, the groups are height based and already break out the other height adjustment of vet and DD. SO within each group there would only be the one skilled and proficient height adjustment, and it is entirely possible in a small group, not even one of those. So there is no small to tall consideration really.

Any idea of how late the last run of the day is over? And within groups do we run small to talk or does that change by day?

Isabel

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The last time I was at Champs in Springfield in 2015, the run order stays the same within each group. I believe it was small to tall. It is just the order of the groups that change. You should always be behind the same person.

But this year is different than 2013 and 2015 because the groups are even more "broken out." No lumping smaller dogs in with the next size up because there were too few for their own group. So there should just be the skilled/proficient difference only in each group.Vicki

Back to Vicki's question (and apologies is this is answered somewhere, but I haven't seen it).

As mentioned, the order within each height group stays the same.Pre-Elite and Vet/Double Digit dogs may be different, but the way it has been recently has been (for examples ONLY):Day 1: 4, 8, 12, 16, 20"Day 2: 8, 12, 16, 20, 4"Day 3: 12, 16, 20, 4, 8"Day 4: 16, 20, 4, 8, 12"

I really like this, in that each height has one early day, one late(r) day, and others in-between.Rarely, if ever, would your group have the last run one day and the first run the next.

That said, however, everyone walks first thing in the morning - so there ain't no sleepin' in!

How are the walk throughs going to be divided? There are 18 groups, some groups (6 if I counted right) are as small as 1-4 people, one group with about 50 people, the rest are somewhere in between. Will some of the smaller groups walk together, will the largest group of about 50 be split (I am not in this group)?

Or are there going to be 5 walking groups: Elite non-vets, Elite vets, Elite DD, Pre-Elite, and Stakes?

Just trying to get an estimated time for how long the walk through will take since on Thursday I run towards the beginning of the first group. If all 18 groups get 7 minutes, that is about 2 hours of walking, or if 5 groups walk that would be 35 minutes. That is a big difference in time. Or it could be some other type of grouping that would take somewhere in between.